The use of social media is beginning to seriously influence politics. The recent victory of Uber, a company that makes a taxi-summoning app, is a recent example. When Washington, D.C., council members tried to shut it down, the president of Uber fought back on Twitter.

The D.C. city council proposed an amendment requiring cabs using this app to charge five times the rate for other taxis in D.C. (Does this seem unfair? Not inWashington.) Uber’s president asked the council if they really wanted to make Uber cabs available only to the wealthy. He asked his Twitter followers to send protest tweets.

It worked. The Uber app and taxi service is available in 12 U.S.and Canadian cities (none in the South as yet) as well as Paris and London.